Slaying

A 20-year-old Orlando man was arrested and two others are still on the loose six weeks after Patrick Taft Jackson was shot and killed during a Winter Park home invasion. Edward K'Sahn Henry was arrested Tuesday. He faces first-degree murder and home-invasion-robbery charges. Police were called to the 1300 block of Loren Avenue just after midnight on June 12 when three masked men armed with handguns stormed into 29-year-old Jackson's duplex. Jackson was shot in the abdomen and died three days later.

A man who confessed to gunning down his ex-girlfriend at the Burger King in DeBary almost three years ago was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday. Jesus Morales, 44, admitted to shooting Heidi Shelmire, 38, of Deltona on Sept. 19, 2011 at the Burger King where she worked. Morales pled guilty to first-degree murder with a firearm and burglary while armed. He was sentenced to life in prison on both counts. Morales pulled a .40-caliber handgun from beneath his clothes as he stood at the counter of the restaurant at 305 Sunrise Blvd., witnesses told investigators.

Two teens charged in the brutal killing of a Marion County boy will be tried as adults, CFNews13.com is reporting. Amber Wright, 15, and her brother Kyle Hooper, 16, are charged with first degree murder for their roles in the shooting, beating, and burning of 15-year-old Seath Jackson. Marion County detectives said the teens helped plan the slaying as retribution against Jackson, who used to date Wright. Read the full report here .

Lucny "Chico" Gustave wasn't the typical drug dealer. Despite more than a dozen traffic violations in Orange County, Gustave had never been convicted of a crime. But in 2009, at the height of the recession, 23-year-old Gustave owned a home and was already married with two young children. He was faced with unending financial woes and had no way to pay his mortgage, so he decided to participate in a drug transaction, according to Orange County homicide Detective Liz Collins.

A man wanted in the deadly robbery of an Iraq war veteran in Puerto Rico was arrested this week in Central Florida by federal marshals. Reynoel Figueroa-Leon, 24, was wanted on a three-count federal indictment charging him with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, accessory after the fact and possession of a firearm with a prior conviction. He was arrested Tuesday afternoon by U.S. marshals in Winter Park. The indictment alleges Figueroa-Leon altered, destroyed, mutilated and concealed a Smith and Wesson .40-caliber pistol to impair its use in a federal grand jury investigation into a carjacking that resulted in the death of Jose Waldemar Cruz- Colon.

After about eight months of investigating, an arrest has been made in the slaying of a 30-year-old transgender woman who was shot to death in woods off Nimrod Lane in Orange County in April. Deputies arrested 22-year-old Kentz Louis on first-degree murder charges in the death of Ashley Sinclair. Deputies were called to the scene after witnesses heard gun shots in the area. Sinclair's body was found about 5:40 a.m. on April 4. Louis and Sinclair were acquaintances, deputies said.

Winter Haven police and a local bar owner are offering a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an arrest in the deadly shooting of a popular Orlando musician. Ralph Ameduri Jr., 45, a well-known bassist and guitarist, was shot about 1 a.m. Saturday behind Jessie's Bar on Third Street Northwest in Winter Haven. Ameduri was playing bass with Thomas Wynn & The Believers, substituting for another musician. Police said the band was taking a break on a back patio area when the suspect approached the group and demanded money.

KISSIMMEE — The suspect in Celebration's first killing will remain jailed without bail on a murder charge, a judge said Tuesday. During a hearing that lasted less than a minute, Osceola County Judge Stefania Jancewicz also told David-Israel Zenon Murillo, 28, that he qualified for a public defender. Murillo, who was shackled and confined to a floor-to-ceiling cell at the rear of a jailhouse courtroom, spoke a few words so softly that spectators could not hear. He slumped over — arms resting on his lap, head down — as he waited for the judge to complete hearings for other inmates.

More evidence in the state's second-degree murder case against an Isleworth millionaire has been released to his defense, according to a court document made public Tuesday. Prosecutors filed notice stating a several-page search warrant for an IBM Thinkpad was released to James Robert "Bob" Ward's defense lawyer. Ward is accused of shooting his wife, Diane Ward, inside their Isleworth mansion in September. Ward, a developer whose company went into bankruptcy before the shooting, faces a count of second-degree murder.

Orange County deputies arrested a 25-year-old man in connection to the June slaying of his uncle, Sidney Shepard. Cedric King, 25, was arrested Saturday and is charged with first-degree murder in Shepard's death, according to the Sheriff's Office. King was living with Shepard at the time of the slaying and was a person of interest in the case. He was arrested Saturday and confessed to shooting his 64-year-old uncle, deputies said. Shepard was found June 27 dead in his home in the 4800 block of Deauville Drive in Pine Hills after a relative called the Sheriff's Office to ask deputies to check him. He was to be married in August, friends said.

The suspected shooter in one of Orange County's latest homicides is among seven men linked to a string of roughly 40 violent armed robberies, mostly at local businesses, deputies announced Wednesday. Robbery suspect Brixten Dyer, 19, is accused in the death of Alex Mazzan in a shooting near Orlando Regional Medical Center last month. Dyer has been in the Orange County Jail since June 6 on charges of robbery with a firearm and battery stemming from an unrelated attack on a tow-truck driver April 26. "Their tactics were aggressive and dangerous," Orange County Sheriff Jerry L. Demings said during a news conference Wednesday.

A suspect has been named in the slaying of Alex Mazzan who was gunned downed near Orlando Regional Medical Center last month, according to Orlando police. The suspect has been identified as Brixten Dyer, 19, who already is in jail with no bond on unrelated armed robbery charges, Orlando police said. Dyer has been in jail since June 6. Homicide investigators are currently working with prosecutors regarding charges in the homicide. Mazzan, of Orlando, was gunned down May 18 while walking back to his car with his friend.

A Seminole County grand jury today indicted a 25-year-old Orlando man who authorities say left his fingerprint inside a McDonald's bag at the scene of a home invasion-homicide near Winter Park in April. Carrington Ivory was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, burglary, robbery and auto theft. He was arrested May 7 and is being held in the Seminole County Jail without bail. Authorities say he was one of a group of masked men who robbed and killed Stephen Beglane, 44, April 18. Beglane was a convicted cocaine abuser, and his wife, who was tied up but was not hurt, told deputies she believed the killing was related to his drug use. Before killing him, masked robbers asked him where he kept his money and guns, according to his wife, Susan Campbell, and they talked as if they knew each other.

Yadira Smith told friends and family that Robinson Hedghill threatened to kill her if she didn't marry him, records show. If anything were to happen, Smith confided with neighbor Charlotte Hampton, she wanted to make sure her children stayed together. On Friday, something seemed odd with Smith when she and Hampton spoke on the phone. Hampton told police she went to Smith's house, where Hedghill answered the door. Records said Smith stood behind Hedghill and told her friend: "He won't let me out. " Hampton returned to her home and called 911. But before Orlando police arrived at their Pine Hills-area home, Smith's teen son came home from school and found his mother dead.

Three people have been charged in last year's slaying of a man found dead in a South Daytona apartment complex last year, news-journalonline.com said. Police announced the arrests today in the homicide case of Donald Clark. Read the full story at news-journalonline.com .

When Deborah Watson called 911 last month asking for help, her ex-boyfriend's voice and gunshots were recorded in the background, detectives said Thursday. Deputies responded to the area of Curry Ford Road and found no sign of Watson. But about two minutes after the 911 call was placed, they did encounter her estranged boyfriend, Leonard Scott Lewis. Lewis was combative, Orange County detectives said Thursday. He claimed he knew nothing about a shooting and said he never heard gunshots.

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) — The unemployed restaurant worker accused of sexually assaulting and killing 7-year-old Somer Thompson has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Jarred Harrell entered the plea in a brief hearing Thursday morning. He is being held without bail. Somer's body was found in a Georgia landfill two days after she vanished walking home from school in October. Authorities say Harrell lured Somer into his parents' home, where she was asphyxiated and tossed into a trash bin. Harrell was charged March 26 in Somer's slaying.

Deputies in Orange County arrested Francis Ambach on Tuesday on first-degree murder charges for the slaying of Warren Vorhies in May. Sheriff's reports show Ambach, 51, was in the Marion County Jail on unrelated charges when he was arrested on the outstanding murder warrant. He is being held at the Orange County Jail without bond. Arrest reports show deputies had responded to 3507 Mantou Drive on May 24 after receiving a 911 call at 10:30 a.m. When deputies arrived, they found Vorhies' body.

The star-crossed teen lovers accused of killing Windermere Officer Robert German killed themselves with single gunshots to the head. Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner's Office confirmed that detail this week after autopsies of the teenagers - Brandon Goode, 18, and Alexandria "Alex" Hollinghurst, 17. Authorities previously said the teens apparently committed suicide after gunning down German early March 22. Windermere police also released a...

TAMPA - Prosecutors have notified the defense they will not seek a death sentence for Julie Schenecker if she is convicted of murdering her two teenage children in 2010. Schenecker is scheduled to go on trial April 28 in the shooting deaths of her children, Calyx, 16, and Beau, 13, In August 2011, the prosecution announced it would seek the death penalty. On Monday, the prosecution notified the defense it was withdrawing its notice of intent to seek the death penalty. The prosecution gave no reason for the change.